Abstract:The molten salt based electrorefining process is a very promising pyroprocessing technology, which is expected to replace the traditional hydrometallurgical reprocessing methods for nuclear spent fuel. In a typical electrorefining process, the radiation resistant LiCl-KCl melt is often used as the electrolyte to anodically dissolve the nuclear spent fuel. Most of the uranium is deposited and recovered on an inert mild-steel cathode, while the remaining uranium and minor actinides are recovered in a liquid cadmium cathode (LCC) by electrowinning. However, the lanthanides (Ln)/ actinides (An) separation coefficients on the LCC are quite low especially for the minor An elements. The Ln elements known as neutron poisoners due to their large neutron absorption cross-sections, will significantly hamper the partitioning and transmutation (P&T) performances in the future advanced nuclear fuel cycle. Therefore, seeking a decent liquid cathode that can effectively solve the Ln/An separation problem is essential for the nuclear fuel cycle.

In this talk, I will present the use of gallium metal as liquid cathode to effectively separate An over Ln. In addition, the evolution of uranium dendritic morphology on an inert cathode will also be demonstrated.

About the speaker:Dr. Kui LIU is now a postdoctoral researcher of IFCEN, SYSU. He obtained his Ph.D. degree (supervisor, Prof. Zhifang CHAI and Weiqun SHI) from Institute of High Energy Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in July 2018. His research area is pyroprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. Dr. LIU has published more than 30 SCI papers.